Illah pulled the map from his packet and studied it for a moment.
“The village of Koboli is due south of here, no more than five kilometers. That will be our first objective.”
From the position of the sun, Kashic Illah realized that he would soon be losing the favorable lighting.
That concerned him. When the sun disappeared behind the highest peaks, the shadows in the hills would begin to lengthen and when they did, it would give his adversary the advantage.
“Stop here,” he ordered, and his men rested, each of them searching out a place where the warming rays of the sun still traced their way into the valley.
“How far to the village?” his squad leader asked.
Illaf took out his map, referenced the two highest peaks, and mentally triangulated their position.
“Straight ahead. Corporal. Over that rise we should find a small patch of meadows and beyond that, Koboli — perhaps another hour unless we encounter one of their guerrilla bands.”
“I am surprised that we have not encountered them already,” the corporal admitted.
Illah selected a large nearby rock, propped his assault rifle against it, sat down, and again surveyed the narrow expanse ahead of them. The next few hundred yards would be tantamount to crawling through a minefield. The narrow strip of land was bordered on two sides by sheer walls of granite — low enough to enable the Kurds to get off good shots, high enough to conceal the guerrillas until it was too late. Again he rumbled through his pockets until he found his cigarettes, offered one to his squad leader, and continued to scour the rocks and boulders for any sign that they were being watched.
The young squad leader knelt down, scooped up a handful of soil, and inspected it.
“The ground is worthless,” he observed.
“The grass is sparse, the dirt consists of mostly pebbles and rocks.”
“When it is all you have, you will defend it fiercely,” Illah replied. He finished his cigarette, and was in the process of reaching for his rifle when the first shot rang out. The corporal, sitting less than ten feet from him, tried to rise up, duelling at his stomach. It was already saturated with an ugly black red smear. Illah reached for him, but the young soldier spun away, dropped to his knees, and toppled over into the dirt.
“The shot came from up there, Lieutenant!” one of the men shouted. He was pointing at a small ridge no more than thirty yards from where Illah was standing. Then, a second shot rang out and ricocheted in the rocks behind him. Illah spun just in time to see a figure scurry between boulders.
The NIMF lieutenant grabbed his rifle, crouched, and waited. When his target tried to scurry to another outcropping that offered more protection, Illah was ready. He aimed, squeezed off several rounds, and saw the figure stagger backward with his arms flailing. Then there was silence.
Illah continued to wait, crouching and counting.
If there were more of them, especially one or two on the other side of the narrow gorge, his patrol was caught in a potential cross fire. More than ten minutes passed before he gave the order for two of his men to work their way up to where the Kurd had fallen. In the meanwhile there was nothing for Illah to do but wait. He had taken a calculated risk and he had lost. He had decided to investigate the Kurd village on foot. He had reasoned that a helicopter would give the Kurds too much of a warning. By the time Nayaf had been able to find a place to put the chopper down, the Kurds would have dispersed, hidden in the maze of hills and caves, and Khaldun’s fate would still be unknown.
Finally he heard one of the men shout down from the west side of the gorge.
“He is dead. Lieutenant.”
“Bring the body down,” Illah ordered.
Minutes later one of the members of his patrol dragged the body of the Kurd into the small clearing.
Illah rolled the body over with the toe of his boot. Most of the flesh on the Kurd’s face had been abraded where he had been dragged over the rough terrain. Still, Illah was able to determine that the body was that of a mere youth.
“How old would you say he is?” Illah questioned.
The soldier briefly studied the body sprawled at his feet and hunched his shoulders.
“He is not very old,” the man finally said.
Illah shook his head, kneeled down, cupped his hand under the youth’s chin, and looked at the bloodied face.
“No more than twelve,” he estimated, “but old enough and skilled enough to kill Corporal Isr with one shot.”
“Do you think there are more of them?” the soldier asked.
Again Illah looked up in the rocks and shook his head.
“Yes, but not here. This boy was most likely a shepherd. Someone gave him a weapon and he used it. No doubt he saw us and believed he could both stop us and warn his village at the same time.” Illah knelt down and examined the body again.
“Now, unfortunately, we no longer enjoy the advantage of surprise. There can be little doubt they heard the gunfire in the village.”
“What do we do now, Lieutenant?” the soldier asked.
“I will radio back to Captain Nayef. I will tell him we have been ambushed and that we have suffered a casualty. Then I will ask him to strafe the village and when he is confident we will encounter no more than minimum resistance, land as close to the site as possible until we complete our sweep of the village.”
Illah’s patrol was in position, looking down from its vantage point on a small incline no more than four hundred yards from the village, when the attack began. Nayef’s Russian-built Mi-24 emerged like a great predator from the darkening shadows over the Koboli settlement and made its first pass. It swooped down on the village with its 12.7mm four-barrel remote-controlled turret-mounted gun bent on destroying everything in its line of fire. If the Kurds had heard the gunfire an hour or so earlier, there was no indication.
Illah watched as men, women, children, and animals were gunned down before they could seek cover. The attack lasted no more than a few minutes. Nayaf made a second sweep and then a third. After the third pass, the carnage ceased.
Nayef’s voice crackled down over the field radio and Illah gave the signal to cease fire. The giant helicopter gunship broke off and began its search for a landing place. In the strangled silence that followed, Illah could hear the cries of the wounded. One by one the fortunate few who had survived began to emerge from their hiding places to check on the injured. Within minutes, the sounds of crying children had been drowned out by the plaintive wailing of the adults that remained.
Illah and his patrol climbed down from the rocks and he signaled for his men to begin the sweep of the village. His orders were clear.
“Shoot anything that moves, and burn the rest.” There was no hesitation; his patrol did as they were instructed.
He heard the women screaming hysterically as his men forced them to kneel beside the wounded before they were sprayed with gunfire.
By the time he reached the center of the village, his men had begun their search of the still-standing sod-walled huts. Those that were empty were burned. If the patrol found someone hiding, the unfortunate one was dragged into the clearing and shot.
Illah looked at his watch. Jahin would have been proud. The entire operation had taken less than seventeen minutes. He closed his eyes and said a prayer, thanking Allah for the safe deliverance of his men.
“Report,” he shouted, and one by one, the five remaining members of his patrol reported their findings.
By the time Nayef had landed the gunship and approached him. Lieutenant Kashic Illah was congratulating himself. He could report that the Kurdish village had been destroyed with only the loss of one NIMF soldier. Major Jahin would have been pleased indeed. Illah’s first real battlefield encounter had been a success.